The Distributed Factory
The Distributed Factory turns maintenance, repair, software support, remanufacturing and recovery into a continuing industrial system rather than a collection of obligations after the initial sale.
Part 6 gave the household a point of contact and the Agency a continuing responsibility. That responsibility reaches beyond the showroom. When the family needs a repair, a replacement vehicle or a different Mobility Class, someone must be able to deliver what the Agency has promised. The network behind that promise is the Distributed Factory.
A vehicle spends only a small part of its working life on an assembly line. The rest unfolds in workshops, on roads, in software systems and, eventually, in facilities that recover components and materials. Those activities already exist. MML proposes organising them as a continuing industrial system around the asset.
The Distributed Factory is the name given to that system. It connects initial manufacturing with maintenance, repair, upgrades, remanufacturing and recovery, while making responsibility for the connections explicit.